As is known in the art, cryptography generally relies upon exactitude to provide the desired level of security. For example, most ciphers require presentation of an exactly correct decryption key to permit recovery of a plaintext. Similarly, the output of a hash function is intolerant of small perturbations to input values. Changing even one bit at random in a pre-image usually causes a change in about half of the bits of the corresponding image. Such intolerance of even small errors in cryptographic primitives stems naturally from the guiding design principals of “confusion” and “diffusion.” Such exactitude in cryptographic systems is of critical importance in many situations. Permitting an attacker to alter even a single bit in a sensitive message, such as a funds transfer or patient record, can be quite dangerous.
At the interface between cryptographic systems and their human users, however, the ability to achieve exactitude breaks down. Human beings tend to misremember private information, make typos in passwords, and present fingers to fingerprint readers in a slightly different way each time. In addition, the inexact nature of human interaction with computers is not confined to errors. Programs that answer Web queries or match profiles of prospective business partners, for example, handle relatively high levels of uncertainty and imprecision.
Various attempts have been made to address so-called “fuzziness” in user input. One example is provided by graphical password systems, in which a user sketches a secret picture in lieu of entering a text password. Users generally sketch a given picture a slightly different way each time. Thus, graphical password systems should be tolerant of sketch variations, while not sacrificing security. Another known system enables users to recover passwords by answering a series of questions. In recognition of the unreliability of human memory, the system can permit users to answer some of these questions incorrectly.
While such systems can compensate for some level of user error, these systems depend upon the order of the user input. That is, known systems require user input in a predetermined order. Thus, these systems provide a limited level of fuzziness in the commitment and decommitment process.
It would, therefore, be desirable to overcome the aforesaid and other disadvantages of known commitment schemes.